Free alpha test for collegiate gamers

Have you ever wanted to try a game out before anyone else? It could be easier to achieve than you think.

On Friday at the penultimate meeting of the year for the League of Gaming Club at SF State, a guest speaker introduced a new alpha for an upcoming mobile game. An alpha is a game in pre-production, which means that the product is not fully complete, but it is playable.

“It’s a collegiate only alpha with 14 different universities,” said Will Levine, publisher for Seasun Games. Seasun Games is a publisher located in Redwood City that has produced multiple games for the PC and mobile platforms, known primarily for its massive multiplayer online game (MMO) hit JX Online.

“We’re trying to get E-sports gamers in college because it’s our audience,” Levine said. “If they’re interested I want people to play the game and sign up. It’s totally free to play and it’s called Dawn Craft.”

Dawn Craft will be a mix between a mobile online battle arena (MOBA) and a real time strategy (RTS). So in a sense, StarCraft meets Dota but for your phone. Matches will range from 5 to 8 minutes so it would be perfect between classes or on a short to medium commute.

So far only 1v1 and 2v2 player modes are available to choose from, however 5v5 might be a possibility down the road according to Levine.

“I like it because it’s a Warcraft 3 clone,” said Devon Bone, a philosophy major at SF State. “It’s nostalgic. The animations are the same.”

Warcraft 3 was a popular RTS made by Blizzard before the hit World of Warcraft took over the franchise.

As for the club, League of Gaming, anyone is encouraged to join.

“We’re a Tespa chapter, so we get a lot of hook-ups from Blizzard,” said Aditya Sharma, president of the club League of Gaming and business major. “We get gifts from Tespa all the time, which is Blizzard’s collegiate subsidiary, and we just end up giving all of these prizes and gifts away to our members.”

The Dawn Craft alpha test will begin on Dec. 20. Anyone interested in games is encouraged to join the test. The link to sign up for the alpha which includes a small 2 minute survey is here: bit.ly/gatorcraft.